Trump and Fox’s First conflict. Attorney David Lurie explains in The Daily Beast how Fox News and the ex-president wound up on opposite sides: “First Amendment limitations on defamation liability that Trump and other right-wingers have long railed against well could be the only thing standing in the way of Fox News facing as much as $2.7 billion in damages.”
■ Mother Jones: “Facebook Let Trump Lie America Into an Insurrection. Will It Stop Other Leaders From Doing Worse?”
■ Montana lawmakers have—at least for now—rejected legislation casting news media as “slander machines.”
‘Religious liberty’ winning streak. A Willamette University law professor reviews the Supreme Court’s increasing sympathy for religious conservatives’ claims that nondiscrimination laws violate their ability to practice their beliefs.
■ The court has blocked California’s enforcement of pandemic restrictions that limited home-based Bible studies and prayer meetings.
■ Intellectual-property lawyers ponder the question, “Was Lil Nas X’s ‘Satan Shoe’ an exercise of free speech or a trademark violation?”
Cheerleader cheered. A brother and sister who won a landmark free-speech ruling in the Supreme Court half a century ago have filed a brief supporting a high school cheerleader disciplined for posting “F— cheer, f— everything” off-campus but on Snapchat.
■ Education Week: The court’s ruling in her case “could reshape the status of student free-speech rights.”
■ In a victory for academic freedom, a federal appeals court says a Supreme Court ruling that limited public employees’ First Amendment rights has no application in university classrooms.
■ Virginia Tech faces a federal lawsuit filed by a conservative group contending university policy on harassment and discrimination infringes on students’ free speech.
‘The complete disregard for First Amendment rights … is shocking and saddening.’ Journalism professors writing in the Houston Chronicle condemn Texas legislation that would force pro sports teams to play the national anthem.
■ A Confederate flag-waving group has won a default judgment in federal court in its fight against a merchant group that banned the flag from a Christmas parade.
‘We lost … because a judge … thinks revenge porn is free speech.’ Ex-Congresswoman Katie Hill, who sued a British tabloid that ran naked photos of her—provided by her ex-husband—plans to appeal the dismissal of her case.
■ Hill, who was once defended by since-scandalized scandal-scarred Rep. Matt Gaetz, calls his invocation of her name in an op-ed piece “gross”—but acknowledges that “my judgment when it comes to men has clearly not been the best.”
■ National Review commentary by Wesley J. Smith: “Are undercover videos constitutionally protected free speech … or properly subject to legal restraints? I guess it depends on whose ox—or fetus—is being gored.”
‘A potential radical shift in thinking around the First Amendment.’ CNET analyzes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ “warning shot at social media giants Facebook and Twitter that could signal the possibility of stricter regulation.”
■ Time commentary by David French: “Thomas fed unnecessary fuel to a fire that could consume key constitutional freedoms.”
■ Texans are suing their attorney general, accusing him of violating their First Amendment rights by blocking them on Twitter.
■ A Muslim civil rights group is suing Facebook, alleging the company failed to remove hate speech and anti-Muslim networks even after it’d been notified of their existence.
